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It was just a hug that went on for too long. A long day, an impulse, Clara had grabbed the Doctor and. Hadn’t let go.
Long enough to wonder if it was going to turn into anything else, long enough to wonder where her hands should be, really. He was, as per usual, so impossibly stiff, so still, tense but not running. His breath held as she shifted her grasp. Onto the rest of him, beyond pre-established hugging zones. She buried her face in the thick wool of his coat and she held her breath, too.
And she exhaled, moving her hands to his hips, ducking under his coat. Taking advantage of this one time where he was letting her, where he was allowing her to do this. Allowing himself to accept it.
“Thanks,” she said, fingers curled around him, thumbs brushing against his waistband, half a thought of sliding under. “I know you don’t like hugs.”
“But you do,” he replied. He let her put her hand on his chest, leaning back, fingers splayed over the area she imagined might contain his hearts. Still with his breath held.
“Is it easier like this?” She slid her hand down, braced her arms either side of him, what little there was to hold, and looked up at him, looked until his eyes stopped focusing on everything but her. “When you can see my face. And I can see yours. Is a hug alright then?”
He paused, hesitant, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. Gaze fixed on a point somewhere around her chin. “I might not have told the whole truth. When I said that.”
“Mmm,” she said, digging her hands just slightly into his sides. “As you tend to do.”
His breath hitched, finally. Signs of life. “It’s just…”
She hoped she was reading this right, fingers crossed: she moved in closer, her hands more liberal. Pulling at his shirt at the small of his back, tugging it untucked and teasing underneath it. “Yeah?”
“It’s been a while,” he said. Laughing shakily, half-embarrassed, half just. Sad, or scared, or both.
And she remembered, suddenly, or he reminded her: Trenzalore, the thousand years between them. All of - all of that. Right. Right, so, as you do, with your maybe-boyfriend who’s forgotten how to hold you, how to be held, rusted-shut and confused, or terrified, by the weaknesses intimacy brings. As you do, so she did; with her hand not occupied with being reassuringly braced on his spine, she tugged the rest of his shirt from his trousers and scrabbled under, meeting his wide-eyed expression with a grin. And she went in for a good, solid tickle.
He squeaked out a laugh and doubled over and then coughed, cleared his throat. “Sorry, uh. That’s part of a hug, then?”
“Can be,” she said, committed now, scratching at the soft skin of his belly until he made that noise again. “You’re ticklish, huh?”
“I ‘spose,” he gasped out, squirming away from her, and towards her again. “Is that what this is?”
A thousand years and a war between them. The lonely old man he’d become. And then back again, this giddy boyish creature wearing wrinkles like a mask, twelve children stacked beneath a crombie coat. This was the first time, technically, that anyone had done this to him - the first time he’d ever been jokingly wrestled with, the first time his breath had come short like this, first time fumbled down onto the wingbacked chair he kept in the TARDIS, for Brooding, except now he was giggling and play-batting her hands away as she dug into his ribs. This ancient child staring up at her, wide-eyed, as her fingers stilled. Half-laughing every slight move that she made, and she was laughing too. Not awkwardly, just because it was funny somehow. This situation. She leant against him, pulled her legs up, knees either side of his thighs.
His laugh petering out, evening out, and the look he was giving her.
“It’s okay,” she breathed. “It’s alright.” She bent down to kiss him gently, chastely. And then attacked with a vengeance, tickling his belly until he, for whatever reason, sneezed.
(“It’s okay,” she repeated, wiping snot off her face. His body still thrumming with the automatic laugh, breathing deep and ragged, the occasional hiccup.
“Right,” he said, putting his arms around her. Hands on her shoulder blades, massaging. “So. Do that again? Maybe?”
She wiped her snot-covered hand off on his coat, and did it again.)